THIS WEEK’S DIGITAL NEWS ROUND-UP FROM CLARION

It may only be the middle of January but 2015 is already
heating up to be one of the most competitive years on social media, with
leading platforms all looking to take ownership of video.

Twitter to increase
video functionality

2014 had seen massive growth for videos on Facebook and now
Twitter is set to get in on the act by improving its video packages. As part of the drive, Twitterwill offer its one-click
play video unit to all advertisers in a bid to encourage more content on the
site. In addition, Snappy TV,the live clipping platform
that Twitter acquired in June 2014, will also be available for free to advertisers.

Twitter Drives 18% of UK Cinema Ticket
Sales

A study commission
by Twitter this week highlights the impact the social media channel has on cinema
ticket sales. Twitter
claims to have directly contributed to 18 percent of UK cinema ticket sales
over a three-year period - that is a pretty impressive statistic!

Additionally 46
percent of respondents to the survey said that they had watched a trailer for a
movie on Twitter.

Google Translate gets smarter with language
detection

They say Star Trek
inspired the mobile phone with is communicator device. Perhaps the sci-fi
series also inspired Google’s updated language detection tool, Google Translate, which through
new ‘Word Lens’, instantaneously
translates written text.

Facebook ‘likes’ prove to be more accurate
gauge of personality than friends

Researche by
Cambridge University’s Psychometrics Centre has found that Facebook ‘likes’ can
determine a person’s personality more accurately than their own friends.

A specially coded
algorithm created by the researchers trawled the social media interactions of
volunteers and used this information to form a picture of the person’s
character. Surprisingly this method was found to more accurately gauge
personality than a work colleague.

And finally...

How soccer star Francesco Totti's famous
selfie came to be

Granted it is only
January but this may prove to be one of the most famous selfies of 2015. AS
Roma soccer star Francesco Totti gained worldwide media headlines this week for
celebrating a goal by taking the first on-pitch selfie.

The idea though,
wasn’t as spontaneous as many may have thought. Totti had come up with the idea for a special celebration should he
score a goal, according to Sean Foley, who runs the club's digital and social
initiatives. The plan was simple: plant an iPhone 6 with goalkeepers coach
Guido Nanni, who would be easy for Totti to find should he score. The rest as
they say is history.